Guess the Plot
Dawn's Rise
1. Get up. Come on. It's 6:32 already, Dawn. Have to wash face. Brush teeth. 6:33. Have to get stockings out of dryer. Come on. It's 6:34. Make coffee. Get up, or at least hit the snooze button. The alarm is driving me nuts.
2. Solar flares! Asteroids and earthquakes! All Earth's cities destroyed, refugees battling over the world's remaining resources, and the survivors on the space station struggling just to breathe. Can Dawn rise above the chaos and save the planet from the coming apocalypse. . . before her head explodes?
3. Now that Dawn is running for President, Brenda wants to save America by telling everyone what happened that day at Ridgemont High. But can she evade Dawn's cousin Louie, the hitman from Chicago, long enough to get to her clandestine poolside meeting with hunky reporter Chad Wilson?
4. Dawn Flamingo, trapeze acrobat, does too much blogging and develops carpal tunnel problems that ruin her grip. Circus master Jack fires her. Now a woeful waitress, Dawn can only dream of redemption . . . until fate makes her the first kangaroo whisperer.
5. Searching in the archives for something more interesting than the "one thousand ways to praise the god Saratorn," Raston, the youngest priest in the Order of Eternal Darkness stumbles upon the truth: the darkness is almost over, Aspilon is about to enter its cycle of light. Hunted by the priesthood who want to hide the truth, can Raston get anyone to believe him before . . . Dawn's Rise?
6. Accidentally "murdered" by her idiotic high school chums, Dawn is dumped overboard into the warm waters of the Burmuda triangle, where she encounters a radioactive substance and grows to be 230 feet tall. Now she's coming ashore to get her revenge.
Original Version
Dear Agent
Savior of the Planet. [If I know most agents, they're gonna think that's part of your salutation.]
That's a hell of a job description and not one that Dawn Anami would have chosen for herself, but it was thrust upon her by prophesy. [Did this prophecy name Dawn Anami, or did it just say the planet would be saved by the niece of an Albanian cheese merchant? I only ask because I have a feeling if there's a prophecy declaring that Dawn Anami will be the world's savior, you're gonna suddenly find a multitude of parents naming their kids Dawn Anami.] Now she has to contend with a space station breaking away from Earth, a massive world quake that destroys the cities (all of them!), the combination of an asteroid and solar flares that threaten to annihilate the crippled station and everyone on the ground, plus groups of refugees battling over the world's remaining resources while the survivors on the space station struggle just to breathe. Can she unite the warring factions in time or will they all perish in the coming apocalypse? Or will her mind explode from her unrelenting visions of death and destruction? [It sounds to me like all anyone has to do is open their eyes and they'll see unrelenting visions of death and destruction.]
It's no wonder DAWN'S RISE is 145,000 words long. Facing just about every disaster known to man, she needs every one of them to meet her destiny and save the planet. [It sounds like you mean every disaster, rather than every word. In any case, it's a flimsy justification for submitting a book that long.] I come from a high-tech background where we face crises on a daily basis.
[Boss: Johnson! The system's down!
Johnson: Did you try rebooting?]
I've put that fire-fighting spirit into my writing.
Notes
Are you sure this is Earth? At a time when we've advanced to having space stations? Because when all our cities have been destroyed and the apocalypse is upon us, I don't see a lot of earthlings trusting in Dawn Anami to set things right. I see the entire population in Road Warrior mode.
Is Dawn on the space station? If not, why is the space station in the query? It seems pretty trivial compared to the other stuff raining down on us. If she is on the station, how is she supposed to unite warring factions? Are the warring factions on the space station?
The query is mainly a list of bad stuff happening. We need the story. Who is Dawn? When was it prophesied that she would save the planet? What was she doing before all hell broke loose? What are the warring factions at war about? What is Dawn planning to do about it?
20 comments:
I'm sure the author has heard this before, but 145,000 is too long for a first story. Even if you wrought the best story ever and had the most enticing query possible, an agent would stop reading the moment 145 pops up.
Try and get the word count in the 100,000 range. It might involve removing some scenes that you're fond of, but it will be worth it when those ms requests come rolling in.
Didn't I read this years ago when it was called "When Worlds Collide" (BTW published in 1933)... And more recently, didn't Bruce Willis and that kid before he played Frodo save the world in not one, but two movies? The apocalyptic end of the world is almost a sub-genre.
To state the obvious, a query is to sell a story, novel or book. Just presenting an apocalyptic situation will not sell the book. The uniqueness of the destruction won't sell the book. Even an apocalyptic novel with multiple disasters. The reader has grown past "Childhood's End" and the amazement of the end times (like Lahaye's series of books).
What will sell this book is Dawn's story. Who is Dawn? How does she grow from humble beginnings into being a hero of the world? What insights will we learn from her struggles? Why should the reader care about Dawn?
The list of disasters makes it sound as if Dawn's waiting until there's so little left of the planet that she could save it in a terrarium.
I'd want to have some idea of who Dawn is, and how she, one person, could save a planet.
The blend of space stations and prophecies is unusual. It could appeal by novelty, or it could put off both fantasy and hard-sf fans.
No Sci-Fi idea is too cheap that it can't be made into a cheesy movie on the Sci-Fi Channel. They specialize in drivel. They glory in drivel.
I like your way with words in the letter, actually. You have a good command of the language and the letter flows well. It just doesn't convey the story. We need to know about Dawn, her motivations, her situation. What she has to contend with is important to the plot, but not necessarily to the query.
Which leads me to something else. Not to shoot you down, but, as described, this plot sounds like a fantasy and not science fiction. Too many improbable things (world quakes, a prophecy that defacto places her as "leader of the sane people" or whatever) are dropped on us out of context, which gives an overall impression (to me, anyhow) that the plot won't work. Not to say it doesn't work, but the letter is not selling me on the plot elements.
Perhaps you might give us less of the wacky disasters that befall our main character and give us the emotional hook--why she gives a damn anyhow (besides the obvious, which is she wants to survive)? Show us some focus that gets her through, not just what she has to contend with.
I'd also really suggest you delete that whole "It's no wonder..." paragraph. It's overdoing it, and explaining why your massive tome is justifiably massive is not going to make anyone want to take on such a big book.
Good luck with revising the query!
sci-fi + prophesy is not a new combo. see any "space opera."
otherwise, what EE said.
For some reason, I'm reminded of the bit in Star Wars where an entire planet is destroyed and its whole population wiped out, and the characters just go "meh" and carry on with their lives.
Perhaps tell us what's so special about Dawn that she can pull herself together and even think about confronting these multiple disasters, rather than sitting in a corner gibbering.
OMG! LOL @ the opening line, and EE's comment. Priceless.
With feuds like these, who needs Anami?
You need the noun "propheCy" in that sentence, not the verb "propheSy." You might want to check that in your novel, too, when you edit and cut. And all I currently know about Dawn Anami is that somebody propheSied that she'd save the world.
If I may nitpick for a moment, I feel first full sentence has too many clauses. The third clause "but it was thrust upon her by prophecy" feels tacked on. Perhaps that should be its own sentence: "But that is the title an ancient prophecy thrusts upon this hapless kindergartener." Dawn is in kindergarten, right?
Brilliant first line rejoinder, EE!
Author: Um, how do I put this delicately? This reads like a farce to me. Do you mean it to be a serious work? At 145K, I would guess so. Lots of SF unites prophecy with science, so that didn't bother me. But my first reaction is that you took all the apocalypse tropes and threw 'em in the pot just because. Now that could work fabulously as a tongue-in-cheek adventure (and hey, if that isn't what YOUR book is, maybe that's something I could try!), but it's really hard for me to take it seriously as a serious plot.
So, more about Dawn and how/where she fits into all this, yes. Not sure how uniting the warring factions will stop an asteroid and solar flares, which I take to be the "coming apocalypse", though it's not overly clear to me what part of this is the actual apocalypse. Plus a mind exploding just doesn't sound quite right. And are her unrelenting visions the actual sights she's seeing or, mainly because you use "her," are they internal visions she's having on top of everything else?
A story is more than just a jumble of events told at breakneck speed. Add a bit more story in without slowing the pace and it might just convince me that this is a Saturday-matinee, popcorn-popping, settle-in-for-a-ride kind of a read rather than a comedic take on all the disaster tropes out there (because I'm off now to go write THAT one...).
My comments are not different, but you can tally them as votes for the following:
1. Like the voice, especially if it's the voice used in the novel.
2. Like the idea (it's definitely sci-fi, from a publishing perspective).
3. You need to focus the query on Dawn, her goals, her conflicts, her stakes.
4. Don't justify 145k, even in a cute way. Make it shorter.
5. "A high-tech background" is not a credential for an apocalypse story. You say "high-tech" I think "Office Space" (or my old job, which is the same thing). The "crises" encountered at a corporate or even start-up company are not even remotely comparable to the things in your query.
(NOTE: If "high-tech" means "I am a spy who uses high-tech gadgets like Batman or James Bond," then it might work. But you should be more specific.)
I was with you up until the last paragraph about your word count. Everything after the words "It's not wonder" was a giant NO for me. If you feel you need to justify your word count to the agent, it's too high. And the sentence about "fire-fighting spirit" seemed random as all get out.
I don't mean this to sound harsh, because I think you've got an interesting story, but those two parts really did not work for me.
Hee Hee
Thanks, EE. You are as Evil as promised.
I will lay claim to this disaster.
Damn you guys are good.
BTW I do have a character named Brenda in the book. Good call.
Actually, the propheCy does name her. Or her image. Whatever, close enough.
And the world does turn into Road Warrior mode.
Matthew: Yes, I know 145K is too long. I'm working on it. It's one thing to write, another to unwrite.
Dave F: Those are great ?'s
batgirl: Yes, exactly. She can't save the planet, just a small piece. In a terrarium of sorts. Seriously.
writtenwyrd: I'm trying to tone down the fantasy part but "prophecy" was the closest I could describe it. It's more like "mass hysteria" than a prophecy. If it makes the query too fantasy-ish, maybe I should drop the word.
rachel: D'Ohh!
Sarah: LOL
I can't believe how much people picked up about the book from just a couple lines.
Phoenix: I started out with the intention of putting every damn apocalyptic disaster into the book. I wanted to out-disaster every cheesy disaster flick and novel out there. I wanted to out-cheese the cheese. But somewhere along the way I developed characters and an actual plot, not to mention a somewhat viable scientific cause for all the disasters that makes it plausible (IMHO). I will work on the Dawn story. I think if you want to write a tongue-in-cheek all-disaster-all-the-time piece I think that would be awesome.
I should clarify: I said it read like a fantasy because of all the fantastic (in the fantasy sense of the word) disaster elements you mention, not because of the prophecy. It sounded like an SF novel until you mentioned "world quakes" and whatever else. It was just too much. I guess I read fantasy elements there when others read potential farce.
Next writing prompt! A disaster piece!
Dominque: Yeah that was random.
writtenwyrd: Every earthquake is felt all around the world. If there was one big enough, it could cause damage everywhere. There have been documented cases of large quakes being felt a continent away. But of course the intensity and coincidence of all these disasters is a bit far-fetched...but who wants to read about ordinary events? BTW "Zombie Apocalypse" never made it into story...but that kind of stuff never sells.
While the clever, erudite people around here have been reminded of things like Star Wars and When Worlds Collide ... what it reminded me of was David Langford and John Grant's Earthdoom!, in which just about every disaster you can imagine happens at once.
Of course, Earthdoom! was a deliberate parody, so maybe that's not a good role model for your book. (Also, from what Langford says about it, Earthdoom! was remaindered before they'd finished writing it, so that's another reason not to emulate it.)
I wasn't at all clear what role the space station played in things. Not wishing to be callous, or anything, but if every city in the world is being destroyed, I wouldn't expect the survivors to be worrying much about a space station. The International Space Station has a crew of three; I think the destruction of Kirby Muxloe would be enough to push the ISS out of the headlines.
I guess I'd just like to know how all these plot elements fit together, a bit more. And, well, is the whole thing as over-the-top as it sounds? Because it does come over as a bit, err, melodramatic ...
A terrarium? Cool! Like that miniature Krypton city in a bottle, in Superman's Fortress of Solitude!
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